Today, August 8, 2009, is World Cat Day!
"Let us all celebrate ~ World Cat Day.
Celebrate kitties in your own special way.
Those here and near, and those now above,
all the kitties so dear, all the kitties we love."
The usual suspects -- Bugsy, Sassy, Callie, Roxy and Pixie -- have said that since they get celebrated essentially every day at home and here on The Kitty Krew blog, I could use this occasion to remember and celebrate several kitties that have gone on to The Rainbow Bridge already.
Tigger ~
approx. 4/15/1994 to 12/7/2007
Tigger was a pretty striped tabby that me and my ex got when she was about 6 weeks old; we gotcha'd her the first week of June 1994, and we used Tax Day (April 15) as her birthday. She and her brother Felix (see below) were barn kittens of one of his mom's cats, and we were visiting up in Ohio, had driven up from Texas with our dog. Even though we had 4 cats at home already, I just fell in love with the wee kittens.
From the beginning, Tigger seemed to be the cat that was picked on by the other cats. Both when she was a youngster with the older cats, and when she was the oldster with new younger cats. So she spent a lot of her 13+ years in hiding, it seems. She didn't much like the dogs, either (this was pre-split-with-the-ex -- he kept the dogs, I took the cats). I tried to give her extra loving when I could to make up for it, but she tended to remain standoffish most of the time. But when she decided to be loving and get in my lap, she was the sweetest kitty.
She suddenly developed kidney problems beginning about a month after her brother died, and died rather quickly about two months after it started. It was quite unexpected, especially since nearly all kitties I've had that had kidney problems lasted for months after it started; but a couple months later, and she was at home laying next to my computer chair when she passed in her sleep.
Felix ~
approx. 4/15/1994 to 9/6/2007
Felix, Tigger's brother, was a black panther kitty, with just a small patch of white hairs at his throat. He was the friendliest and most outgoing kitty there was, never got in a fight with any of the other cats -- though he'd defend himself if anycat started something -- and he seemed to try and defend Tigger sometimes. He got along fine with the dogs, didn't exactly seek them out but didn't mind them if they got in his face.
Poor Felix had some ear problems; what I had initially thought was an ear infection turned out to be some kind of cyst/tumor that kept reoccuring. Over the course of 6 weeks, he had three surgeries. Sadly, even though he made it through the 3rd surgery fine, for some unknown reason he died during recovery without waking up from the anesthesia.
Patches ~
gotcha'd 7/1991 to 11/24/2004
Patches was a pretty kitty, I think what's called a dilute calico? Kind of a gray stripe tabby with just light splashes of orange here and there, as you can see if you bigify the picture. I got her and her sister Kasha (see below) in July 1991 through an ad when they were supposedly about 2 years old; I don't know if they were even really sisters, but I always called them that. The people who had them had a kid who turned out to be allergic so wanted to find a good home, and I was ready to have kitties again after not having any for a long time (funny enough, when I moved out on my own after high school and couldn't have cats initially, I developed allergies to them after a few months! Still have allergies, but it's worse around kittens and long hairs, not so bad around adults and short hairs...so I live with it).
Patches was kind of goofy, she didn't much like the other kitties other than her sister, she didn't like my ex at all even though he came along just a year after I got her so was in the picture for all but one year that she was with me; but she loved me to pieces and would always want to be in my lap or next to me, as long as none of the other kitties were around. It did take her longer than Kasha to warm up to me initially, though. As with Tigger, Patches didn't like the dogs at all.
Like happens to a lot of kitties, Patches developed and succumbed to kidney failure over a period of months, and we finally did what we had to do to ease her suffering.
Kasha ~
gotcha'd 7/1991 to 5/7/2003
Kasha, Patches's sister, was a gray stripey-ish tabby. Not classic stripes, but with stripey markings. It's hard to tell from the picture. She was a sweetie, never really had much trouble getting along with the other kitties or the dogs. She was fine hanging out with me, but would be fine for long periods of time napping on her own too. She also liked spending time with the ex, her and Felix were about the only ones who did (and the two cats he had when we got married, which died in late 1994 (just after we got Tigger and Felix) and 2000; I won't cover them in this post).
As with Patches, she also had developed kidney disease and dealt with it for quite awhile before we finally made that tough decision to let her go.
Tigger, Felix, Patches, Kasha -- I still love and miss you all. You'll always be in my heart and a part of me.
Happy World Cat Day to all you kitties out there!
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